Page 98

And she does—coming apart with a cry that splits the air, her body writhing beneath mine as I watch her fall with me. The raw, unfiltered emotion on her face as pleasure overtakes her wrecks me completely.

I lose it the second she shatters—my rhythm stuttering, hips slamming deep as I spill into her with a groan that's halfworship, half destruction. Like I've been torn open from the inside and filled with her instead. Something holy in its ruin.

This isn't just pleasure. It's choice. Hers and mine. It's finding something we didn't even know we were looking for—and realizing we'll never let it go.

"I'm still yours," she whispers, voice raw and wrecked, her fingers dragging lazy circles across my sweat-slicked chest. "But not because you broke me. Not because you fucked me like I belonged to you."

I shift just enough to see her eyes—hazy, red-rimmed, still glassy with the aftershocks—and I know this matters.

"Then why?" I rasp, my voice shredded. "Tell me why you're still here."

Her lips curve—barely—but it's real. "Because I fucking want to be," she says. "Because no one's ever ruined me like you do and made me like it."

She drags her nails down my ribs, eyes blazing. "And that's all that matters."

I pull her closer, my arms tightening around her as something fierce and protective and terrifying blooms in my chest.

I drag her on top of me, pressing my hand to the back of her neck, like I need to feel her pulse to believe this is real.

"You're mine," I whisper, rough and reverent, burying my face in her hair. "And I'm never letting go. I'll burn this whole fucking world down before I lose you."

Thirty-Nine

LUNA

Beckett carriesme through the woods, cradled against his chest like something precious instead of something claimed. I don't speak. Neither does he. The only sounds are our breathing, his measured footsteps on the forest floor, and the occasional rustle of leaves overhead.

My mind is still reeling from everything that just happened. Not just the physical connection—though my body still thrums with the memory of it—but the words. The admissions. The walls that came crumbling down between us, leaving us both exposed in ways I never anticipated.

I need you. All of you.

His words echo in my head, too enormous to fully comprehend. Beckett Sinclair—the man who owns everything, who controls everything, who never shows weakness—admitted he needs me. Not as a possession. Not as a conquest. But as a person. As myself.

And I admitted I needed himtoo.

The house comes into view, its stark brutalist lines somehow less forbidding now. Less like a prison and more like a fortress built to protect what's inside. He carries me through the door without breaking stride, his arms never wavering despite the distance we've traveled.

He brings me straight to the master bathroom—a cavernous space of stone and glass that I've never entered before now. The shower is massive, with multiple shower heads and walls of transparent glass. He sets me down gently on my feet, his hands lingering at my waist as if reluctant to break contact.

"Let me take care of you," he says, his voice low and rough with an emotion I'm still learning to recognize.

I nod, unable to find words that feel adequate for this moment.

He undresses me slowly, reverently—so different from the desperate, hungry way he's stripped me in the past. Each article of clothing is removed with careful attention, his fingertips ghosting over newly exposed skin with something like wonder. When I stand naked before him, he looks at me not with hunger but with appreciation, like he's seeing me for the first time.

I reach for his shirt, wanting to return the favor, and he allows it—another small surrender from a man who never yields control. I undress him with the same deliberate care, revealing the body I know so well yet somehow don't know at all. The scars I've never asked about. The tension he always carries in his shoulders. The vulnerability he keeps hidden beneath tailored suits and cold authority.

When we're both naked, he leads me into the shower, turns on the water, and adjusts the temperature with practiced precision. The spray hits us from multiple angles, warm andsoothing against skin still flushed from our encounter in the woods.

Beckett reaches for soap, lathers it between his hands, and begins to wash me—starting with my shoulders, moving down my arms, across my collarbone. His touch is gentle, almost reverent. There's nothing sexual in it now, just pure care and attention.

"You're beautiful," he murmurs, more to himself than to me.

I close my eyes, leaning into his touch, allowing myself to be tended to in a way I've never experienced before. He washes every inch of me, careful with the places where bark or moss left marks on my skin, thorough but never invasive. When he kneels to wash my legs, I find myself resting a hand on his shoulder for balance, and the simple domesticity of the gesture nearly brings tears to my eyes.

When he's finished, I take the soap from him and repeat the process—washing his broad shoulders, the strong planes of his chest, the taut muscles of his abdomen. I feel him trembling slightly under my touch, a vulnerability he's never shown before.

"No one's ever done this for you before, have they?" I ask softly.